You're a smart, savvy integrated marketer. You've optimized your organization's website for keywords and mobile, reviewed your analytics forward and backward, and made sure to consider user experience in all facets of your design. But have you considered user intent? Entrepreneur Magazine takes a look at three tips for creating a user-intent SEO strategy to drive more relevant traffic and increase site performance.
Part of Google's intensive search algorithm includes user intent, displaying search results by relevance. For this reason, understanding intent when creating website content is essential to improving your site's relevance and SEO. There are three stages of user intent: informational, navigational, and transactional.
Informational - the user is merely gathering information at the beginning stage of a purchase or outreach effort. They may search using 'how to' phrases.
Navigational - the user is looking for more specific information, considering their options. They may search for the 'best' product or solution.
Transactional - the user is ready to make a purchase and search using 'where to purchase' language. Search results will be for product and company pages.
At this point, review your site analytics to see if your content matches audience search intent. Check out your top performing keywords-are customers likely to land on a page that best aligns with their intent, or is a transactional buyer being driven to a page that only provides informational content? If it's the latter, sprinkle informational keywords on introductory pages (blog posts, overview pages) and more transactional language on product pages or anywhere users can make a purchase.
While updating intent keywords is a great first step, effective integrated marketers should also create new optimized content. Plan content that will persuade users at each stage of intent, as well as ensuring that what is written on a page aligns with your keyword targets. These steps will guide users through the buyer's journey, providing unique content on your site for each search, and positioning you as the leading match for their needs.
Understanding user intent will take your SEO strategy to new heights. Your optimized content will not only help you improve your site's ranking during the initial search, but serve as a tool for converting visitors to buyers by showing them that you cater to them at every step of their buying journey from the initial informational search, to the transactional final purchase.
Last modified: November 1, 2018
